Worldbuilding Handbook

A Serious Departure

'No one will ever know what In Cold Blood took out of me. It scraped me right down to the marrow of my bones. It nearly killed me. I think, in a way, it did kill me.' - Truman Capote

Capote nearly drove himself to depression or insanity writing it [In Cold Blood].

Now, we must consider more than just the man's health here. The book itself was an important, remarkably written book. Clearly, for some reason or another, Capote himself felt it had to be written, regardless of what it took away from him. Early on he stated that it had little to do with the subject, but this was not the case by the end, clearly.

In any case, we must ask ourselves why he wrote to the end. Was it an obsession? Was it important for him to tell America this story? Was he interested in the story itself or the subjects? Or the villains? Was it for pure or selfish reasoning? Did he start out with a pure heart and at some point lost his way, thus, indeed, making it a strange obsession? 

Would it sit in this way:

1. The writer. 2. the story itself. 3. The audience. 4. The money/fame.

Or in this way:

1. The story itself. 2. The audience. 3. The writer. 4. The money/fame.

Or in this way:

1. The story itself. 2. The writer. 3. The audience. 4. The money/fame.

I am almost certain it is one of these (that is to say, it's one for a darker reason or purely for the audience). We know that at some point, it became much more for him than just telling America the story. Therefore, it must have been either for himself or the story itself (and in a sense, for himself, just in another form). Now, I would also say that I am also quite sure, in turn, that it is not the second option. But, this is unclear.

If it is the writer first, we must question why he has this desire because, of course, it is not the same as Rowling's positive journey. Why would he wish to escape into such a dark world? Maybe he felt alone in the real world? How deep does it go? Did he connect, at a base level, with the subjects?

We know that by the end of it, he grew close to Perry Edward Smith (the murderer in question).

The question has become: did he love him or exploit him?

By his raw emotion, it seems, he must have either loved him or felt deeply terrible for exploiting him.

Now, if he did not love him and simply exploited him for the story, and cared this deeply, to in a sense, break himself, then it must be the third option or even the second.

Of course, if he did love him, then it may very well be the first option, with the writer being first in focus or importance (in this case, the subjects being the focus in relation to the writer, but it doesn't change anything in my classification I don't think).

Now, he could have done it all for the audience, indeed. Telling America was so important that he had to do it at any cost. This would imply an option left out, where the audience is first, which is often the case with this kind of novel.

The reason I do not see this being true is his nature, his feelings, his response, and his actions. It is absolutely clear that he did not write the book solely to tell America such tragedy. At least, not in the straightforward sense. First, he wanted to find an interesting story. Nobody cares about a boring story. Not the writer, nor the audience.

I shouldn't like to say any more than this, for we are getting close to judging which it is, but this, we can never know.

Indeed, could it not be both? I get this feeling to some degree. That is to say, he both loved him and exploited him. Or at least, felt so poorly of exploiting him that he felt so strongly towards him and so negatively of himself that it registers as love.

Humans are complex, after all. He may have simply been conflicted with getting close to somebody who is to die. After all, it is noted that he was very unhappy with Perry's death. This implies either a deep positive (love) or negative (guilt/sorrow) emotion towards the situation, I would assume. He may not have loved him sexually, nor exploited him. He may simply have cared for a fellow human being. This is not unheard of, it's actually quite common, believe it or not.

Lest we forget, Perry did not go to that house wishing to kill anybody, nobody was to be hurt at all. Not to mention, Perry himself had quite a terrible life.

His father abused his wife and four children. After this, he lived with his alcoholic mother who died when he was thirteen. Later, he lived in a Catholic orphanage, where nuns reportedly abused him physically and emotionally for his chronic bed-wetting (which was a life-long problem), along with another member of the orphanage trying to drown him. Later on, in his teens, he lived with his father and got himself into many juvenile detention homes after joining a street gang and becoming involved in petty crime. Two of his siblings killed themselves as young adults, and the remaining sister no longer contacted Perry at all.

He, at sixteen, served in the U.S. Marines (Korean War) and faced harsh conditions, such as spending weeks in the stockade for public fighting. Perry had little education, however, was interested in art, music, and literature, and on death row, he painted pictures for other inmates. Too, he suffered chronic pain due to an accident that shattered his legs, for this, he consumed large amounts of aspirin.

Capote, writing In Cold Blood, knew this and much more. If I am displaying just one thing, it is that there is always room for reflection.